12
BAMOS
Mar 2019
Obituary
Henry Phillpot (third from left) with
Synoptic Research colleagues in
the late 1970s. From the left: John
Zillman, Greg Holland, Henry,
Peter Price, Frank Woodcock,
France Lajoie, Pan (a visiting
Chinese scientist). The blackboard
emphasises Henry's career-long
insistence on the fundamental
importance of good observations in
the logic of the forecasting process.
Photo courtesy of Peter Price.
medium for the new numerical modelling applications which
were being developed around the world at that time. The
Australian contribution involved manual reanalysis for two
enhanced observing periods in 1969 and 1970 for the Southern
Hemisphere and took almost two years. Then, with the Basic Data
Set Project completed, Henry returned to priority components
of his Branch’s original forecasting research agenda through the
work of rising stars such as Neville Nicholls, France Lajoie, Frank
Woodcock and Greg Holland.
In July 1978, Henry commenced long-term acting as the Bureau’s
Assistant Director (Research). But, while he had enjoyed leading
the small dedicated synoptic research effort through the pre-
FGGE and FGGE period (team pictured above), Henry soon
concluded that the time had come to pass on the leadership
of Bureau research to Bob Brook and the next generation.
He retired from the Public Service on 30 September 1980,
after 40 years in the Bureau, to return to his love of Antarctic
meteorology.
From 1980 to 1993, he served as an honorary Senior Research
Associate in the Meteorology Department of the University
of Melbourne specialising in research into Antarctic synoptic
Meteorology. He continued his painstaking analysis of the
Antarctic coastal data from the IGY and focussed his efforts
on preparing for meteorological support for a possible future
Antarctic Air Transport System. He also delivered a series of
Antarctic lectures and seminars until 1993 when changes at the
University convinced him that his research would fare better
if he returned to the Bureau. So, from 1994, Henry continued
his Antarctic work as a Bureau of Meteorology Emeritus Senior
Scientist. In 1997, he brought his observational studies of the
meteorological features of East Antarctica together in a massive
published Meteorological Study. He formally retired from his
Emeritus role in the Bureau in 2001 after more than 60 years in
meteorology.
One of Henry’s most demanding undertakings in his retirement
years was as an expert witness in the 1985 Royal Commission
into British Nuclear Tests in Australia. He spent several months
working on his opening statement to the Commission. His
submission, with its 29 attachments, which provides his detailed
recollections, as the only Australian to witness the entire series
of tests, stands as a case study of the care, precision and social
conscience which characterised his entire professional career.
In the mid-1970s, Henry was a member of the small group led
by Arch Dyer of CSIRO which developed the proposals that
led to the establishment of the Australian Branch of the Royal
Meteorological Society (ABRMS). When the ABRMS was replaced
by the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
(AMOS) in 1987, he became an active participant, in retirement,
in AMOS activities.
Henry was deeply committed to the professionalism of the
Public Service and was especially active, during his Bureau
years, in the work of the Professional Officers Association
(POA). In POA circles, he championed equal pay for women and
his testing experience as a witness before the Public Service
Arbitrator inspired one of his standard lines when testing others’
arguments: ‘Do you think that would convince Mr Arbitrator?’. He
served as chairman of the POA Meteorologist Group and, in
1975, the POA honoured him with its annual Award of Merit for
his Antarctic research.
Henry was a wise and generous mentor and a respected and
admired colleague of all those who worked for and with him. He
had a deep sense of loyalty to the Bureau and to the profession
of meteorology and he was a much-loved member of the post-
War generation of Bureau officers that has been chronicled by
Bill Gibbs as its ‘Very Special Family’. Both Henry and Vera were
regular attendees, over several decades, at meetings of the
Bureau’s ‘Frosterley’ Club of retired and long-serving officers.
Henry held strong views on a wide range of scientific, social and
political issues and enjoyed vigorous debate, but he was also
the epitome of courtesy, decency and personal kindness and is
almost universally remembered as ‘one of Nature’s gentlemen’.
His meticulous commitment to the scientific method and
proper process significantly shaped the generation of
Australian meteorologists who were privileged to have him as a
mentor and who remain indebted to him for the moral support,
encouragement and firm but gentle guidance received in their
early careers.
After he lost his wife Vera in 2007, and already in his late 80s,
Henry turned his energies to helping with voluntary care for the
elderly until he, in turn, needed that special care. He spent his
final years in the Mayflower Retirement Home in Brighton where
he looked forward to visits from his daughter Lynda, son Robert
and their families and also from his many friends including
occasional visits from his former meteorological colleagues. He
was deeply affected by Robert’s death in 2014 but remained
determined to reach his own 100. While he would have felt
disappointment at falling just eight months short, he spoke
often in his final years of the great privilege he felt to have lived
such a long and rewarding life. All his former meteorological
colleagues feel privileged, in turn, to have shared it with him.
He is survived by Lynda and by Lynda’s and Robert’s families to
whom his former colleagues extend deep sympathy on their
loss.